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xFOREST Therapeutics Announces Drug Discovery Collaboration with Takeda to Target RNA Structures in Neurological Diseases 

xFOREST Therapeutics (Headquarter: Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan; President and CEO: Shunichi Kashida; hereinafter, xFOREST) announced today that it has reached an agreement with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (Headquarter: Chuo-ku, Osaka, Japan; hereinafter, Takeda）on a drug discovery collaboration to target RNA structures in neurological diseases.

Under the agreement, xFOREST will provide its proprietary FOREST technologies, a suite of large-scale parallel analysis platforms, to promote systematic small molecule drug discovery research targeting RNA structures. Takeda will have exclusive rights to develop and commercialize RNA-targeted small molecules identified from the collaboration. xFOREST will receive an upfront payment and is eligible to receive additional payments based on the achievements of development milestones, plus royalties on sales of any successful commercialized products resulting from the partnership.

Comment from Ceri Davies, Neuroscience Drug Discovery Unit Head at Takeda

“xFOREST’s platform technology provides a powerful tool to modulate previously undruggable targets for neurological diseases and this collaboration provides us with a great opportunity to develop medicines for patients that currently have no treatment options.”

Comment from Shunichi Kashida, CEO of xFOREST

“We are excited to launch the research collaboration with Takeda for RNA-structure targeting drug discovery in the neurological disease field. xFOREST can offer unprecedented HTS and analysis platforms for targeting disease-related RNA structures. Through this powerful research collaboration, we aspire to deliver novel medicines to patients as quickly as possible.”